Marching up and down: obsolete IR tactics

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When Henry Bolte, Victoria's longest-serving premier, declared
in 1969 that a group of striking railway workers could "march up
and down until they're bloody well footsore", there was community
outrage. It was not the premier's verbal assault on the unionists -
whose snap strike had caused commuter chaos - that many Victorians
found offensive. It was his use of the "B-word". Those were
different days, of course. "Bloody" has become respectable enough
for modern Australian dictionaries to define it as "colloquial"
rather than "offensive". But the workers, it seems, are still
marching up and down.

Mass gatherings across Australia last week marked the beginning
of the campaign against the Howard Government's industrial
relations reforms, high on the agenda now that the Coalition has
control of the Senate. In Melbourne on Thursday, an estimated
120,000 workers and their supporters took to the streets. An
ebullient Opposition Leader Kim Beazley addressed the Melbourne
rally, a bright spot in an otherwise dreary week in which his
leadership of the Labor Party had come under renewed assault from
within, or at least from his predecessor, Mark Latham. Smaller
gatherings also occurred in provincial Victoria, Perth, Hobart,
Adelaide and Brisbane as part of a national day of action organised
by the ACTU. The Melbourne rally was the largest industrial
gathering seen in the city for many years. It was followed by a
smaller march in Sydney on Friday. The rallies were peaceful and
well-organised, with police praising the behaviour of those who
took part.

The workers united may never be defeated, but who was listening
to their clarion call? As an expression of solidarity, the
gatherings were no doubt heartening to the leadership of the union
movement and to the broader membership. The harsh reality remains,
however, that union membership in Australia is in decline and has
been for decades. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics,
just one in five workers (22.7 per cent) was a member of a trade
union in August last year. This was down slightly on the previous
year. The situation is most pronounced in the private sector.

In Henry Bolte's day, union membership was more like 60 per
cent. Marching up and down made a lot of sense and was ultimately a
useful industrial tactic. These days its relevance, like that of
unionism itself, appears lost on many Australians. As author and
former political speechwriter Don Watson has noted, the spectacle
of "trade union types shouting 'What do we want?' etc just don't
cut it in the celebrity culture. Nor do the things they stand for."
Therein lies one of the union movement's greatest challenges if it
wants to survive as a social and political force in the longer
term.

The Victorian Government, having ceded its industrial relations
responsibilities to the Commonwealth in 1996, is hardly in a
position to be challenging the substance of the Howard Government
changes. It is, of course, right to challenge unfair provisions,
but it is difficult in these circumstances for Victoria to take the
same principled stand as other states that have retained industrial
relations systems of their own. How curious, then, to hear a
critique from Victoria's Attorney-General Rob Hulls on the equity
of the proposals.

Most Australians will make their judgements about the Howard
Government's changes to the industrial relations landscape where it
affects them - in their workplace. Union members or not, workers
will make their decision about the equity or otherwise of the
changes based on how they are treated.

The elimination of some workplace safeguards exposes the more
vulnerable classes of workers to the sorts of unfair treatment that
some have already suffered from rogue employers. The Federal
Government is putting its trust in employers to implement the
proposed changes in a fair and reasonable way. If they fail to do
so, the political consequences will be felt sharply at the ballot
box.